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Good spy, bad spy? Where will Chris Pine land?

By Tony Hicks, Contra Costa Times

Posted:
01/17/2014 03:56:13 PM MST

Updated:
01/17/2014 03:56:55 PM MST

This image released by Paramount Pictures shows Keira Knightley, left, and Chris Pine in "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit," an action thriller about a covert CIA analyst who uncovers a Russian plot to crash the U.S. economy with a terrorist attack. (Larry Horricks/AP Photo/Paramount Pictures)

Chris Pine is about to become the fourth actor to take a shot at the title character in “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit,” following the successful efforts of Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford and the not-so-successful attempt by Ben Affleck, in the role made famous in Tom Clancy novels.

Pine is throwing himself into a film genre that never seems to get old. Ever since the 1940s, when the exploits of Wild Bill Donovan and the Office of Strategic Services – which later became the CIA – began filtering back from World War II-era Europe, Americans have been fascinated by spy films.

Hollywood executive Drew Felts has seen that firsthand as the co-founder of film distributor Contintental Media. “The spy film genre is currently very valuable in the worldwide marketplace, and distributors are very interested in new product,” he says.

Right — they're popular, but they are not all created equal. What separates the good ones from the bad ones?

Spy movies have to be convincing. Male spies have to make women want them — and make men want to be them. Or just the opposite, if one is talking about Anne Parillaud in 1990's “Nikita,” about an heroin addict-turned-French operative.

Good movie spies need to do things the rest of us cannot. They have to be smart, brave, good with a gun and unafraid to hop on a motorcycle for a dizzying chase scene.

Philip Becnel is a longtime investigator and the managing partner of Dinolt Becnel & Wells Investigative Group in Washington, D.C. Not surprisingly, he's also an aficionado of spy films.

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“Spies have to have so many skills, and many of those skills are contradictory,” says Becnel, who has written two books on private investigating. “You have to be tenacious, but you also have to work within certain rules. You have to be highly socially adept, but you also have to be unobtrusive and not tip your hand. You need a lot of support — including from your agents — but you have to be very careful whom you trust.”

Board members of the Long Island Spy Museum — most of whom are former spies for the CIA, NSA, State Department and other agencies, according to the group's website — recently compiled a list of spy films they considered the best. Among those were the original 1979 “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” starring Alec Guinness, about which one former CIA officer says, “Real-life spies love the plot focus on recruitment of assets, betrayal and subterfuge; this is the 'bread and butter' of spycraft.”

Other films scoring high with the professionals included 2006's “Munich,” about Israel's hunt for the terrorists who killed nine hostages at the 1972 Summer Olympics; Robert DeNiro's 1998 film “Ronin”; the 1935 film “The 39 Steps”; 1975's “Three Days of the Condor” (starring Robert Redford); 1965's “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold”; and 2006's “The Good Shepherd,” starring Matt Damon.

Another role made famous by Damon helped reignite the spy-thriller genre in 2002. His three “Bourne” movies were a smart, modern take on the classic Robert Ludlum novels, with some fantastic action thrown in. Ditto — for the most part — for Tom Cruise's successful “Mission Impossible” franchise.

“My favorite spy was Maya (Jessica Chastain) in 'Zero Dark Thirty,' ” Becnel says. “I recognize that in real life, an analyst wouldn't have done as much as she did in the movie, but her character to me embodies the tenacity I see in the people I work with every day. You get obsessed with solving a particular problem — in her case, finding bin Laden — and it drives you to such great personal sacrifices. It makes you push the envelope.”

For all the great film spies, there have likely been just as many bad ones (and that's not including the laughs Mike Myers got playing Austin Powers, or the mostly nonlaughs Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase got in “Spies Like Us”). While Sean Connery's portrayal of James Bond in the 1960s still resonates as perhaps the ultimate spy film character, Roger Moore couldn't replicate it in Bond films such as “Moonraker” and the tired “A View to a Kill.” Maybe it's not fair to compare Moore to Connery, perhaps as unfair as comparing Affleck to the two previous Jack Ryans.

Then again, Ashton Kutcher didn't need any comparisons to tank as Spencer Aimes in 2010's “Killers,” nor did the otherwise good actor Ralph Fiennes in 1998's “The Avengers.”

Being a good actor doesn't necessarily guarantee success as a movie spy. Critics roasted Affleck, who had the misfortune of following the heralded turns by Baldwin and Ford.

Pine performed well in the iconic role of Capt. Kirk in the past two “Star Trek” films. Time will tell if he can duplicate success as a movie spy.

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